Local Custom
by betawho
Summary: The Doctor is turned black and stranded in the 1950's American South, during Segregation. How does a black Doctor handle racism? With a smile. This story was nominated for The Children of Time Fanfiction Awards. Includes the Official Review.
1. Review

Here is the review from Children of Time Nominee Reviews (Round 3)

Local Custom

**Why It Rocks:**  
One of the jokes about Doctor Who is that no matter where the TARDIS lands, the Doctor always fits in. He doesn't have to change his clothes or dress for the period; he might change his hair style or his accent, but no matter what, he's never out of place.

And part of that, let's face it, is that no matter where he's dropped, the BBC just doesn't make a deal of it. The Doctor lands in feudal Japan? Okie doke, no worries. The Doctor lands in ancient South America? Yippe-doo, hand over the chocolate. We do love the BBC, but sometimes, they wear blinders.

Betawho took off the blinders. At a time in which a good number of us thought that Doctor #11 might very well be black, Betawho gave us an idea of what we might not have seen. Through a strange surge in the TARDIS, a pulse was sent out that changed the Doctor superficially. He's still a Time Lord, yes - but now, he's black.

And he's landed in the southern United States, in the 1950s.

A very brief history lesson - and I apologize to those who may not need it: when the American Civil War ended, the Southern States who had formed the Confederacy began implementing what were called Jim Crow laws. These laws basically served to set up two separate but equal societies. One for blacks, one for whites. Each group would attend their own schools, their own churches, shop in their own stores, own their own businesses, and so on. Like many things, it worked in theory only. In reality, it was extremely separate, but not quite so equal. These laws continued until the mid-1960s (depending on location). Rosa Parks wasn't the first to speak out against them when she sat down in the Whites Only section of the bus in 1955 - but she was the first to be heard. So first, you've got a society in which there are clear delineations about where a person can drink, can eat, can simply _be_.

And second - you've got a society in which there are very specific rules about how the two groups interact. Remember, in many states, it was actually illegal for two people of different races to marry each other. Forget men marrying men, or women marrying women: we're talking about a society where a black man could not marry a white woman, _period_.

So imagine, if you will - a black Doctor, and a white Companion, not just walking the street talking to each other...but doing just as the Doctor does with his companions. They're holding hands.

_There was a shocked outburst. "Let her go! How dare you!"_

_The group of young toughs from the corner were crammed in the doorway, radiating hostility._

_"Certainly." The Doctor dropped Mandy's hand and reached up to tip his hat again. Under cover of the brim he looked at Mandy. "Run!"_

The thing that's interesting about this fic - it's not meant to be social commentary - it's actually very much a character piece on the Doctor. He's not quite the Doctor we know - and yet he is. Confronted by danger, he meets it with a calm face and a quiet look. He makes friends with the locals, gets them on his side and able to assist when he needs them most. He doesn't want to harm those who are trying to harm him, at least at first. And as always, even knowing he's in very deep trouble, he keeps his sense of humor.

_[The Doctor's new] body had a certain broad majesty to it, [Mandy] realized. Like a big black lion. Grinning like a loon, he casually handled the car through the early-morning traffic. Idly speeding, sirens wailing, raising startled looks from milkmen and paper boys as he sped from the scene of the crime._

We might not be sure about him at the beginning...but by the end, there's no doubt in our minds: this is the Doctor. Color is only skin-deep. And by the end of the story, we're a bit sad. Because _wow_, what a brilliant thing Betawho has shown us, by being just a bit braver than the folks at the BBC.

In short, vote for Local Custom. It's a view of the Doctor we're not likely to see in the next few years, if ever; it's clever and fast-paced and probably too accurate for comfort's sake. It's both the Doctor we recognize and the Doctor we don't, and for such mind-bending, it entirely deserves your vote.

(Go to next page to read "Local Custom".)


	2. Local Custom

LOCAL CUSTOM

—

Light exploded in the TARDIS, blinding white.

"What was that?"

"Not sure. But apparently we've landed."

"Doctor! You've regenerated!"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"But you've changed!"

The Doctor looked down at his hand on the console. He picked it up and turned it over. It was a black man's hand. He looked up at his companion, Mandy, a tall, robust blond woman from the 23rd century. Except now she was a petite redhead.

They were both wearing their normal clothes, but they weren't the same people.

They stared at each other, taking in the changes.

"What happened?"

The Doctor started working on the console, his motions a little unbalanced as he got used to the new body. "It looks like the chameleon arch sent out a random pulse."

"Does that mean you're human now?"

The Doctor stopped his frantic configuring and seemed to think about the question, and listen internally. "No. I'm still a Time Lord. Two hearts, Time sense," he did a quick TARDIS scan, the outline of a woman appeared on the scanner screen. "You're still human. The changes appear to be superficial."

"Well, how do we change back?"

"We've got bigger things to worry about. That pulse knocked out the transfer node."

"And that's bad?"

"The transfer node regulates the flow of Artron energy through the TARDIS, bleeding it off and redirecting it to other uses when it builds up."

"What happens if it keeps building up?"

"Boom." He said succinctly. "We've got 20 hours to replace the Vadian before it causes a temporal explosion. It'll blow a hole in the Vortex and suck us, the TARDIS, and everything around into the Vortex. The explosion will leave a crater several miles deep."

"The explosion will cause an implosion?" she asked, clarifying.

"Yes."

"What sound does an implosion make?" she asked, grinning bravely, trying to find the humor in the situation.

"Moob?" he said, playing along. He grinned at her encouragingly and chucked her on the chin. Her head bobbed more than expected. "Sorry." He looked down at his large hands. "They're bigger than they were a minute ago."

She rubbed her chin and grinned. She looked down at her own dainty, freckled hands. "Don't worry, mine are smaller." She reached around him, toward the scanner, and reached a little farther when her arms weren't long enough. She grinned at him, shamefaced. She flipped back through his readings. "So how do we fix this transfer node?"

"We'll need to find some Vadian. It's the time sensitive mineral in the node. The problem is, it's rare here. We only need a couple of grams, but we'd have to dig up two continents to find that much."

"Where are we, anyway?"

"Earth. 1950s, mid-20th century."

"Hm," she grumped, scrolling through. "Not much chance of offworld trade then."

"No. And offworld tech is mostly held by paranoid governments at this point. If we were just a few decades later we might be able to find something in UNIT's stores. But UNIT doesn't exist yet."

"Any chance of jumping forward till they do?"

"No. Any attempt to time travel with a burned-out node and..."

"Moob?"

"Exactly." He adjusted the sensor controls, shrugging his shoulders against the pinching, too tight jacket. "However, Vadian is somewhat common in meteorites. If we're lucky..."

Ding!

"Hah! Yes. I picked up a trace. If we're lucky it might just be enough. Unfortunately, it's halfway around the planet."

"Why, unfortunately?" she asked, warily.

"Because we can't dematerialize. We'll have to fly there manually. I suggest you hold onto something."

—

Mandy pulled her skinny self up off the deck plates. "I can see why you prefer to travel through the Vortex."

"Any landing is a good landing," the Doctor protested defensively, pushing himself up, "compared to the alternative," he muttered. There was a suspicious ripping sound. The Doctor stilled, wide-eyed, then twisted around, pulling at his shoulder. The back seam of his coat had split.

"Yes. Well, I suggest we get into some better fitting clothes." He looked down at his own highwater pants and Mandy's turned up shirtsleeves.

"1950s huh?" Mandy said, hitching her pants higher and heading for the interior door, "What are the fashions like?"

—

The Doctor stood in the console room wearing a dark, slim legged, double-breasted suit with a thin tie. He was fiddling with the creases of a slate gray fedora hat, trying to get the shape just right.

This body was big and broad shouldered, with rich brown skin and large hands. His eyes, unexpectedly, were slate blue, neither blue nor gray, but somewhere in between.

When he got the hat just right he shoved it on his short black curls with familiar negligence, tipping the brim up with one finger.

"I haven't worn a hat in ages," he said, grinning at her as Mandy trooped into the room and stopped to study him.

"You look good. That suit suits you."

He flashed her a wide white grin. "You look good too. I like the dress."

Mandy twirled in front of him. "I like the skirt. It's all floaty." She was wearing a knee length green dress, gathered at the waist to form a full skirt. "But I hope it's not windy." She lifted the edge of the skirt to flash him a pair of 1990s blue spandex biker shorts, stopping just above her knee.

"Marilyn Monroe you're not."

Mandy fiddled with the ponytail she'd tugged her curly hair into. It bobbed behind her like a fiery lamb's tail.

"Who?"

He grinned again. "Never mind. Shall we go?"

—

Mandy looked around her with interest. "Where are we? You never did say."

"America, one of the Southern states."

"I didn't think South America looked like this." She looked around at the prosperous street scene. Large square brick buildings were built shoulder to shoulder. Curved awnings jutted out, shading glass fronted store windows. Trees grew out of dirt squares in the wide concrete sidewalks. Huge cars, bulbous and heavy, roared by on the paved road, spewing smoke.

"They'll never get those off the ground." Mandy predicted, with 23rd century certainty.

"They only sound like they're about to take off." The Doctor said, ignoring the cars, and the weird stares they were garnering as the two of them emerged from the alleyway.

He studied the tracker in his hand. "That way."

He strode off at his normal brisk pace and Mandy found she was having to skip to keep up. Her newly shorter legs now required two steps for each one of his.

"Why isn't it pinging?" she asked, huffing as she caught up with him, batting down her skirts which were flaring in the light breeze.

"I put it on vibrate. No need to startle the locals."

Mandy shrugged and started surveying the local scene. It was a warm spring day, flowers bloomed in borders around the trees and in flower beds in front of the shops. There were fewer people around than she was used to in the 23rd century, and they seemed to be in less of a hurry, stopping to chat as they shopped, visiting as they browsed over bins and racks set out on the pavement in the sunshine.

There seemed to be plenty of healthy young men lounging at the sides of the buildings, she noted, wearing blue jeans and short-sleeved white shirts.

Mandy grinned. "I think I might like this century," she commented, throwing a flirtatious smile to one of the young men. He frowned back, his eyes flicking angrily to the Doctor.

Mandy's smile faded, and she shrugged. No conquest there. Maybe next time.

The Doctor turned a corner, with his usual long legged stride and unconsciously skirted a group of white shirted young men, and girls dressed in wide skirted dresses similar to Mandy's. He rattled the scanner and thumped it a couple of times. Mandy jogged to catch up to him. She put a hand on his arm, and looked around his shoulder at the tracker, ignoring the hostile looks from the crowd at the corner. Boy, these people must be having a bad day.

"What's the matter? Did it quit?"

"Hm?" He pushed his hat back and scratched his head. Resettling the hat without thought. "No, just a blip. We're still headed in the right direction, but I forgot, I calibrated this using Venusian feet. That means the source is a couple of miles off, instead of a couple of blocks."

Mandy rolled her eyes.

Her stomach growled.

The Doctor stared down at her at the sound, his gray eyes startling in his brown face. He grinned. "Sounds like the tracker isn't the only thing around here that needs recharging."

She grinned back, embarrassed, but shamelessly flirted in the face of his grin. "So why don't you feed me? I did spend the morning helping you resettle a colony/hive of intelligent ants on a new planet. And there is an ice cream shop right behind you."

The Doctor's brows went up in surprise and he looked behind him. A wide sparkling window showed an interior with checked tile floors, spindly white wrought-iron chairs and tables where people sat eating huge gooey confections of whipped cream, chopped nuts and glazed fruit. A shining metal bar at the back sported a wide menu board overhead listing the delicacies to be had. "So there is. And so you did."

He held out a jaunty elbow. "Would you care to accompany me to the parlor, Miss Mandy?"

She grinned and slipped her hand into his elbow. "I'd be delighted, Doctor."

The youths at the corner straightened up aggressively at this familiarity.

Neither of them noticed.

The interior of the ice cream parlor was cool, almost cold, after the warmth of the pavement outside.

Mandy bounced up to the glass fronted display case, delighted as she surveyed the wide selection of flavors to be had. The young man behind the bar smiled at her pretty enthusiasm. "What shall I try?" she asked the Doctor over her shoulder, vacillating between the chocolate covered cherry and the butter pecan. She sighed in nostalgic pleasure seeing so many of her favorites represented. "20th Century or not, you know they're civilized if they still have ice cream. What kind are you getting?"

The Doctor stood back, letting her survey the spread. He glanced along the line from his greater height. "I think I'll try the blueberry," he said in his deep voice.

There is a sudden quiet and a few gasps from the patrons.

Mandy, acclimated to danger by now, spun around to see what had happened.

But there was no danger, no car crash, no alien invasion, no slavering monsters. Instead, everyone was staring at the Doctor with shocked expressions.

A throat cleared nervously. Mandy spun back to stare at the barkeep.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't serve your kind in here," he said with nervous politeness. "There is a very good ice cream shop over on 12th Street that would..."

"What does he mean, 'your kind?'" Mandy whispered to the Doctor, unconsciously crowding closer to his big body, which only increased the hostile stares around them.

"Local custom," the Doctor muttered back quietly. He turned his attention to the young waiter, he tipped his hat politely. "Thank you for the directions, sorry to have caused any confusion."

"I'd still be happy to help miss, if..."

"Would you care for an ice cream, Mandy?" the Doctor said quietly, ignoring the hostility in the room.

Mandy shook her head, her stomach cramping at the thought of food in this environment.

"Very well." The Doctor tipped his hat to the waiter again. "Thank you again for the advice." He turned around to leave and automatically caught Mandy's hand in his. She held on tight.

There was a shocked outburst. "Let her go! How dare you!"

The group of young toughs from the corner were crammed in the doorway, radiating hostility.

"Certainly." The Doctor dropped Mandy's hand and reached up to tip his hat again. Under cover of the brim he looked at Mandy. "Run!"

They both turned and sprinted for the counter. The Doctor vaulted over it one-handed, landing on the other side, heading for the back door. Mandy ducked under the hinged bar flat and followed him, taking advantage of her new smaller size.

There was a roar behind them as the crowd of toughs surged forward.

"Leave them alone!" the waiter cried, interposing himself in front of the door and blocking the bar flat. "They were polite and they left. I don't want any trouble here. You'll cost me my job!"

"But Ned..." they head tough complained.

Their voices faded as Mandy and the Doctor slammed out of the back door into an alley. The Doctor whirled and locked the door with the sonic screwdriver.

"Decent chap. Come on, let's not wait around to see if they listen to him."

He grabbed her hand and they sprinted off down the alleyway.

Following some internal map that Mandy didn't share, he let her down alleyways, across back courtyards, and once through an abandoned warehouse, before they emerged onto the street again.

He stopped and looked around. "Ah! 12th Street," he said with satisfaction, spotting a plaque bolted to the corner of one of the buildings. "Still care for that ice cream?"

—

Mandy stared around in surprise. This street was much like the one they'd just left. The same brick buildings, sidewalks, and cars, although perhaps a bit rundown, the cars not as new, the people all wore the same clothes, but here, all the people were black.

"I don't understand."

"Local custom. I told you." The Doctor pushed his hat far back on his head and stuck his hands sloppily in his pockets, his whole body relaxing as he looked around in delight. "This is much better. Can't you just feel the liveliness in the air?" He sighed happily, as a jazz tune blared out of a transistor radio somewhere nearby.

"Let's see if we can find that ice cream shop. I'm famished!"

—

The ice cream shop was not as grand as the one in the white part of town. It had wood floors instead of tile, and wood paneled walls instead of plaster. But otherwise it was much the same.

With one difference. They were both welcomed here.

Mandy perused the choices, much more avidly now. "Oh look, rum raisin! I'll have that. What are you getting?"

"I'll stick with the blueberry, thanks."

The black woman behind the bar nodded and scooped up the ice cream. Her teenage son rang up their orders. The Doctor dug into his pockets for change.

Mandy watched, and one brow cocked as his hand disappeared nearly up to the elbow.

"Don't tell me you forgot to bring money again."

"No," he said, rummaging deeper. "I remembered." He pulled out a handful of coins and held them up triumphantly. She snickered.

Some of the coins were triangular, some where scalloped like flowers, and some were colored like flowers. The Doctor dug through the handful and found the local currency. He flicked back a penny dated 1974 and handed the rest to the cashier. "Keep the change."

Mandy rolled her eyes and accepted her ice cream cone. The Doctor took his, giving her a triumphant look.

"She one of your family then?" A voice spoke up behind them.

The Doctor turned around, surprised at the question. An older black man was sitting at one of the tables playing a game of checkers with a friend.

The Doctor looked sideways at Mandy. "It's my responsibility to look after her."

The old man nodded. Mandy scowled. The Doctor shrugged.

"I was with my family for 47 years," the old man said. "Started as a driver, back when we still had horses." He waved a careless hand out the window at the passing cars. He set down his next checker move. "If you can find yourself a good family, best to stay with them. Course, the young folks nowadays don't keep with that idea."

"Maybe that's because your "family" threw you out as soon as you got old," the woman behind the bar said.

"Just because the son was forced to let me go once the old dame died doesn't mean they weren't a good family. Times are tough on everyone."

His daughter snorted.

"Good people are hard to find." The Doctor agreed, relaxing now that he realized what the old guy meant. He grinned at Mandy.

—

The ice cream eating and conversation led to the Doctor giving an exhibition of spoons. A couple of the older guys joined in until they had a regular percussion session going. The boss's son pulled out a harmonica to weave a melody around the rhythm and the Doctor ended with a rapidfire staccato burst.

Everyone laughed and clapped. The Doctor bowed.

Mandy rolled her eyes. The Doctor saw her and huffed. "Some people just don't understand the pleasures of spooning!"

Mandy choked on her straw and sputtered soda. Her eyes caught the twinkling eyes of the black woman behind the Doctor's back. They shared a womanly smile.

—

"Doctor, as fun as this is has been, we need to get back to work. We have a deadline, remember?" Mandy said.

The Doctor looked up from his checkers game. "Too right. I'm afraid I'll have to concede the game, Ellis."

He pushed back from the table and pulled the tracker out of his pocket. He waved it around and felt it vibrate against his palm.

He tipped his hat to the room in general, "It's been a pleasure to meet you all." He turned and strode out of the room.

Mandy looked around at the startled faces at his abrupt departure, grinned, shrugged, and followed him.

—

Three blocks later she finally caught up with his long legged stride. He abruptly turned a corner into an alleyway clogged with construction debris, boards, bricks and broken window frames.

Mandy crawled over the debris without thinking about it as the Doctor weaved his way effortlessly through the mass without even seeming to look. She'd climbed over stranger obstacles in her time with him.

He stopped at a whitewashed door in the red brick wall.

"In here."

He pocketed the tracker and pulled out the sonic screwdriver. A quick buzz and the lock clicked open. There wasn't even an alarm to defuse.

"Too easy." He grinned, pocketed the screwdriver and pulled out the tracker.

He pushed open the door to a dim backroom storage area. Metal war surplus shelves held boxes and crates. Trays of rocks and minerals lined a narrow table against the far wall. The Doctor shone the torch of the sonic screwdriver over the trays, checking the tracker. He shook his head.

The blue beam played across a pile of paper receipts and file boxes in the corner and caught the outline of a door.

The Doctor shoved aside the black velvet curtain in the doorway and stepped out into the front of the shop. Glass display cases held arrangements of minerals and semi precious stones, geodes, river-smoothed magnetite and deep trays of water-smoothed and carved stones of various sizes.

Weak moonlight shone in over the half curtain covering the lower part of a wide front display window. The light cast a silvery glow across the first few feet of the shop, but not enough illumination to do away with the torch.

"You look over there," the Doctor said, waving with the screwdriver. "I'll take this side."

"Why?" Mandy said, pulling a torch of her own from the deep pockets of her skirt. She'd learned to take a few useful odds and ends with her wherever they went. She twisted it on. "Can't the tracker pinpoint it?"

"I'm getting two separate readings."

Mandy's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but she turned to survey her half of the store. Jewelry and game pieces shared space with educational charts describing different minerals, samples of the stones glued right to the placard.

She found a wet drill for boring holes, and a workstation with several magnifying glasses and loupes. As well as a dusty stack of Geology textbooks. But nothing that looked like a meteorite.

She turned around, careful not to shine her torch through the front window. "Nothing here," she whispered, the dusty silence getting to her. "How about you?"

"Hmm." he said absentmindedly. Mandy realized it was hard to see him in the dark in his dark suit. He was more a feeling of a presence than a visual image. Until he stubbed his toe on a table. The table screeched against the floor and he cursed in Venusian under his breath, hopping on one foot as stones wobbled and fell.

"I think I found it," he gritted out. He picked up the end of the table and moved it sideways. She saw him crouch down, and heard the buzz of the sonic screwdriver, its light at knee height. She heard a rapid series of clicks, the unmistakable sound of the safe tumblers falling into place.

"Do you think we should be breaking into the safe?" she asked nervously, glancing out of the silvered windows.

"That's where the Vadian is. Don't worry. I doubt the shop owner even knows what he has."

"He knows enough to keep it in the safe."

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and the doorknob rattled, setting the bell over the door to jangling.

"Is there anybody in there?" a young male voice asked.

Automatically Mandy and the Doctor flipped off their lights.

"Right!" barked an older more aggressive voice. There was the ominous "snick" of a gun being cocked. "Open up! This is the police!"

The Doctor slammed the safe door shut and spun the lock. He jumped up and shoved the table back into position. Mandy was already running for the back door.

The front door smashed open under the force of an applied boot heel, splintering the jamb.

Two cops burst into the shop, guns at the ready. "Hold it right there!"

—

The Doctor and Mandy offered no resistance as they were handcuffed and bundled into the back of a police cruiser.

In the front seat a burly sergeant was driving, while his younger partner was on the CB radio, apparently arranging a call to the shop's owner to inform him of the break in.

The heavy patrol car took a corner slightly faster than its heavy frame was comfortable with, knocking the Doctor sideways into Mandy, unable to catch himself with their hands cuffed behind their backs.

"Sorry," he said as he straightened.

"Are you having any luck?" she whispered, as she surreptitiously worked at the cuffs behind her back.

He shook his head. "Usually I could have these picked and off in a trice. But, new hands," he explained. "It takes time to relearn the touch after a change. How about you?"

"No." She huffed as she jerked mightily on one arm. "My hands are smaller, but the cuffs are tighter. What do you think they're going to do with us?"

"Take us down to the local station, lock as up. Maybe rough us up a bit."

She looked startled at that last bit. "But why?"

"A black man traveling with a white woman is frowned on in this place and time."

"But why?"

"Never mind. But if you get the chance, tell them you're not with me, tell them I kidnapped you. They might let you go."

"I would never!" she said in outrage.

"Shut up, you two!" barked the sergeant. "You'll have plenty of chance to talk when we reach the station."

—

"Your name."

The Doctor was seated, his hands cuffed in front of him this time, in a bare room, all painted army green, walls, floor, and ceiling, even the table and metal chair he sat in.

"If I told you my name, you wouldn't believe me."

"Your name," the sergeant barked.

The Doctor sighed. "John Smith."

The sergeant backhanded him.

The Doctor rocked back in his chair, his head whipped around by the force of the blow. He settled the chair back on all four legs and raised his bound hands. He wiped at his lip then looked at the blood on his hand.

He looked up with a stony calm, and a hint of pity in his eyes.

"Your name, boy!" the beefy man shouted.

"I already told you."

The sergeant raised his hand again, but the door cracked open and a younger man, also in uniform, walked in. "Enough of that, Jim. You're not going to get anything out of him by acting the brute."

"That's all his type understand." He spat on the concrete floor. "He won't tell us the truth otherwise."

"Well, let's save the violence until the last resort, shall we?" He turned to the Doctor. "You appear to be an educated man."

The sergeant cursed and spat behind him. "Probably can't write his own name." he muttered contemptuously.

The captain ignored him. "What's your name?"

"Doctor Jalen Galdane."

"Hah! I told you! Liars, every one of them."

The captain waved him down.

"Where are you from, Mr. Galdane? You're not local."

"No, I'm a Doctor of meteorology at the University of Kenya. You'll find my ID in that wallet." He jerked his head toward the psychic paper.

The sergeant snatched it up and glared at it. He threw it back down in disgust. "I don't care if you are from Kansas."

"Kenya, not Kansas. Africa."

"Figures, Savage like you, dressed up all fancy. Dog like you'se got no business running around with a white girl. It's indecent!" He advanced on the Doctor with a menacing look.

The captain stepped in front of him, one hand on his chest and picked up the psychic paper in the other.

The captain studied the psychic paper then set it down. "What were you doing in Schneider's mineral shop?"

"Looking for meteors. We had a report that Mr. Schneider had come into possession of dangerous specimens."

"How? Dangerous?" the sergeant snapped, suspicious.

"They emit a peculiar new form of radiation."

"What, like in the movies?" the sergeant said nervously, stepping back from the possibly contaminated Doctor.

"Similar, yes. The study of radiation is still relatively new. With the events of the past few years," the cops eyes clashed and looked away, remembering the bombings that had so recently stopped the war. "My university thought it would be a good idea to get the meteorites into safety."

"And the USA isn't safe enough?" the sergeant, ex-sergeant of the US Army, demanded angrily.

"Excuse me, Doctor," said the captain, idly twitching the psychic paper folder back and forth with a finger. "But I was under the impression that meteorology was the study of weather."

The Doctor's eyes jerked back to him. He'd underestimated this one.

"Considering that you've come all the way from Kenya, do you think I could see your passport?"

The Doctor's eyes jerked back to the psychic paper, then back up to the suspicious captain's eyes. He'd already used the paper as ID, he couldn't use it again as a passport. And this was not the time or place to be caught out as a spy against the United States. As usual, he had painted himself into his own corner.

"I'm afraid my passport was lost with my luggage."

The captain considered him for long twitchy moments. He finally set the psychic paper aside, on the rest of the pile of the Doctor's effects, including the sonic screwdriver.

"In that case, Herr Doctor," he put a very unpleasant German accent on those last words. "It is fortunate for you that nothing was found missing from Schneider's shop. I'm afraid that I will be forced to deport you, and your "colleague," back to Kenya." He turned and walked toward the door. "Come on, Jim."

"But Captain!" Jim was looking at the Doctor is if he'd never seen anything so loathsome. He'd caught that Herr Doctor comment all right. He looked ready to commit murder.

"Come on, Jim." The captain ordered firmly, catching his eye with a no-nonsense gleam. "We've got a lot of paperwork to do."

Reluctantly, the nails in his boots screeching across the floor, he dragged himself toward the door. "But captain," he protested as the door began to shut. "We can't just let them go! Not if..."

"Shut it, Jim. I'm not having this town torn apart by the witch hunters. We're going to deport them out of here, all nice and proper, and get them the hell out of this town." The door closed but the Doctor could still hear the muffled conversation through the wavy pane of glass. "And if I hear that you or any of your "friends" try to stop it. I'll clap you all into jail with him!"

The Doctor began to sweat, a visit from white robed locals carrying torches was always a bad sign, no matter what age you were in. It was time to get him and Mandy out of here. Why did he always make a bad situation worse? He reached for the sonic screwdriver.

The door opened. "Excuse me," the captain said with a completely false politeness. He scooped up the Doctor's effects. "I'll just take these to catalog them for my report."

He stalked out and pulled the door shut behind him with one boot. It clicked shut with a very solid sounding lock.

—

Several hours later, still in the dead of night, the Doctor and Mandy were loaded into a paddywagon and set off with a silent police escort.

"Doctor! Thank God." Mandy hugged him as best she could with handcuffed hands. She leaned back. "Are you all right? Why is your lip swollen?"

The Doctor raised his hands to his puffy lip, the bleeding had stopped hours ago. "It's nothing. What about you? Are you all right?"

She sat back in a huff, her hands cuffed in her lap. "I'm fine, just bored. Once they realized I didn't have any ID they left me alone. Now what's been happening? Where are they taking us?" They both lurch sideways as the wagon started moving.

"Long story. Suffice it to say we are no longer petty criminals. We are now enemy spies."

She just looked at him, her face fell. "Oh Doctor!"

He ignored her woeful look. "Never mind that, lets see your hands."

With the assistance of a bobby pin pulled from Mandy's hair, and a clear view for once, the Doctor soon had their cuffs off and was working on the door. The wagon bounced to a halt and the door popped open. The Doctor caught it and pulled it quickly shut, he and Mandy jumped back to their original positions on opposite benches, cuffed hands in laps as the cop in the front checked on them through the small grated window. Outside the red of a stoplight glared across the windscreen. Assured that his prisoners were behaving he slid the window shut.

The Doctor and Mandy slipped out the door and closed it quietly behind them. As the light turned green, the paddywagon lumbered on, unaware, while they stole away into the bushes by the side of the road.

"But, Doctor. What about your sonic screwdriver, the tracker, the psychic paper?" she said, watching the wagon speed away. "We can't just leave them behind, they'll cause a paradox."

The Doctor took her hand. "Mandy, if we don't get that Vadian and get the TARDIS fixed in the next four hours, a temporal paradox will be the least of our problems."

"So where to now?"

"Back to Schneider's mineral shop."

They started to slink off through the bushes.

"Only one problem," she pointed out. "Where are we?"

The Doctor kept going. "No idea. But something's bound to turn up."

Suddenly a large black shadow rose up in front of them. The Doctor and Mandy froze.

"So what did they get you for?" a young male voice asked cheerfully. A wide grin spread across his black face.

—

"Jeff! Don't do that! You nearly scared me to death."

"Sorry, Miss Mandy." The young clerk from the ice cream store turned to the Doctor. "I saw you nip out of the paddywagon. What did they get you for?" he asked genially, as if getting arrested was nothing to be ashamed of.

"Burglary, at first, then they decided we were spies." the Doctor answered.

The boy lost his grin, his face became stern, he glowered, American through and through. "And are you?"

"No. Although I can see why they got that impression. We lost our passports, they were going to deport us."

"To where?"

"Africa."

"Really? What's it like there?" The boy fell into step with them, apparently deciding to trust them.

"Hot. No offense, Jeff. But if we don't make our flight in the next four hours, we're going to be stuck here for the rest of our lives. And, nice as your little town is, I have no wish to stay here."

"You and me both Doc." The boy skipped a stone off one sneakered foot.

"What are you doing out at this time of night, Jeff?"

The boy just grinned, and turned the edge of his eyes up to the older man. The Doctor read the mischievous look and shook his head. "Never mind. Just point us in the direction of south 15th Street."

"Why, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing you want to know about. But it would probably be best if you had an alibi, just in case."

"I'm not going to help you do anything illegal!" the boy said, squaring his shoulders.

The Doctor sighed and turned to look at him, he brought all the bearing of his impressive age and experience behind his eyes. He could see the boy quail at the look, but resolutely square his shoulders and stand firm.

"Jeff. If we don't complete our mission in the next four hours. You, me, this street, and a large chunk of the town will be reduced to one huge crater in the ground. I am asking you to help me prevent that."

"Crater?" The boy quailed. "Like a bomb? An air raid? But the war's over." He looked up as if expecting to see German planes buzzing the sky.

The Doctor took the boy's shoulders in his hands. "The war is over. But if I don't find what I'm looking for, I won't be able to stop the bomb. Do you understand?"

Jeff looked up into the Doctor's fathomless gray eyes. Even here in the striped semi dark of the urban night he could see the sincerity in that gaze. Could feel the weight that far older and more powerful foes had fallen under.

"I understand."

"Good lad!" The Doctor's grin flashed out and Jeff sagged with relief and grinned back, unable to resist that vivacious charm.

"Which way do we go, Jeff?" Mandy asked, speaking up for the first time.

Jeff turned to her and pointed off to the left. "Three blocks that way."

"Great. Now get home, before I tell your mother you were out this late." Mandy threatened, mock scowling.

Jeff started to trot off then stopped. "Doctor," he said worriedly. "The bomb? My mom?"

"Don't worry. I'll stop it."

Jeff gave him a long look then nodded. He turned and ran for home.

"And if I don't," the Doctor muttered under his breath. "You'll never know."

He took Mandy's hand. "Come on."

—

They found 15th Street and the front of Schneider's shop which had been hammered shut with a small scrap of board over the busted jamb. They worked their way around to the alleyway and ducked in the back door under the police ropes crossing it. The lock was no more immune to the Doctor's bobby pin that it had been to the sonic screwdriver before.

"Now, we know one of the Vadian sources is in the safe. See if you can find the other one." He waved her off and started rummaging through the shelves in the back room.

Mandy, now, unfortunately, without her flashlight, went into the front room and waited for her eyes to become accustomed to the faint ambient city light reflecting from the clouds into the front window.

She searched the shelves, and the heavy, many drawered cabinets methodically. On a pass by the back room she saw the Doctor setting a small dish of sand by the back door and wedging one of the endless mineral samples into the door jamb over the lock plate. With luck it would jam the lock enough to give them a head start if the police showed up.

The Doctor wandered into the front of the shop. "Any luck yet?" he asked over his shoulder as he knelt by the front door and began prying at the board with a flat bladed screwdriver he'd found somewhere.

"Not yet. It would help if I knew what I was looking for."

"A meteorite." He stood up and rattled the doorknob, but the door was still stuck.

"What does a meteorite look like?"

He abandoned the door and walked over to the safe, lifting the table casually out of the way. With a deft twist of his fingers he dialed the safe open, fortunately not needing the sonic screwdriver this time, since he'd opened it once before.

He reached inside and pulled out a tray with a brownish black lump on it.

"That looks like a sycamore seed pod." She stared at the spiky brown ball.

"Very like, yes. This metallic green on the side is the Vadian." Mandy had thought it was lichen. "Looks like enough. But we better find the other one just in case. We can't afford to be wrong."

A few minutes searching turned up the other meteorite on the corner desk, under a large magnifying glass. Schneider had obviously been working on it. Cut open, it looked like a small geode. The stone hollow held a small metallic green polyhedron embedded inside. It was obviously a manufactured structure, not natural.

"Looks like he's been chipping away at it, trying to get it out," Mandy observed.

The Doctor flicked a finger at the chisels and picks the mineralogist had been using to pry it loose. He leaned forward and carefully used one of the small picks to pry the green metallic object out of its matrix. A couple of quick, discrete taps with a hammer against the pick's tines and the polyhedron popped free. He tossed it in his hand, checking the markings on the sides and pocketed it. "Good thing we came here then."

"Why, what was it?"

He patted his pocket. "That's an Ixoran transceiver. They shoot them out all over the galaxy, waiting for some intelligent life form to find them and activate them. If he'd bumped it in just the wrong way..." he rolled the chisel under his thumb speculatively, thoughtfully.

"What? What would have happened?"

"Invasion. An oncoming swarm of 10 foot tall praying mantises with a taste for low industrial cultures and flesh."

Mandy grimaced.

"So!" The Doctor snapped out of his reverie. "It's a good thing we stopped here." He did a quick visual sweep of the shop. "That seems to be it. Back to the TARDIS then."

He stopped. "Oh, wait a minute." He rummaged in his pockets, front, back, pants, coat. "Where did I put... Ah!" He took off one of his shoes and slipped the heel sideways, and poured a stream of diamonds into the geode he'd taken the transmitter from. "Good thing the police didn't find this when they searched us." He grinned at her, self-satisfied. He held up one of the diamonds in his dark hand, the light sparked from it, clear and bright as starshine.

He rummaged on the desk for a slip of paper. He wrote two short words and folded the paper - jamming it into the pile of glittery diamonds. He slipped the tray back into the safe and locked it for safekeeping.

He stood up and dusted his hands off for a job well done. "There. Now back to the TARDIS."

The slip of paper read, "In Payment."

—

The Doctor moved the table back into place in front of the safe. "Now all we've got to do is process the raw Vadian and hope it's enough to fix the transfer node."

There was a brief blurt of police siren and a flash of red/white strobe light from outside. Mandy ducked below the window. "Not again! How did they find us so soon?"

"Back to the scene of the crime. Any good cop knows that," the Doctor said.

He grinned at the sound of irritated voices from outside. "Ah, rookies, what would we do without them?"

The Doctor shoved the heavy table against the door with one foot. He heard a rattle from the back door. "I suggest you cover your eyes!"

"What?" Reacting instinctively to the order, she threw her hands up, just as the backdoor splintered open under a battering ram and a blinding flash of white light went off. Cops yelled, blinded, and Mandy felt the Doctor's large, cool hand grab hers.

"Come on!"

There was the screech of heavy wood on tile floor and Mandy felt herself pulled out into the night air, a jarring impact slowing the Doctor down only slightly.

"In here!" She tripped and dove as the Doctor pushed her into a small confined space. She fell against resilient cushions, still blinded, and heard a door slam, clipping her foot.

The Doctor swung into the driver's side and used the stolen screwdriver to pop open the cover on the steering column and pry out a tangle of wires, he sparked the ignition to life.

"Hang on!" With a maniacal grin, (that she could just make out with her watery eyes - brilliant white in his dark face) he sped out, hit the siren and wailed off into the night shoving her down as a shot from the sergeant's shotgun shattered the rear window.

She lay on the front seat and shook her head against the upholstery. She started laughing.

"You stole a cop car." She giggled then shoved her self up, peering back through the shattered back window. "Only you would steal a cop car for a getaway." They screeched around the corner and left the police long behind.

She sat up and shoved her hair out of her face, she rubbed the flash blooms out of her eyes. "What did you do back there?" she asked, just now noticing that night was giving way to pearly dawn.

"Just a little magnesium, in a bed of sand, and a flint in the door jamb to strike a spark when they forced the door. It gave us a distraction."

"I'll say! And you loosened the board on the front door too, right?"

"Yep."

She looked at his handsome dark profile. This body had a certain broad majesty to it, she realized. Like a big black lion. Grinning like a loon, he casually handled the car through the early-morning traffic. Idly speeding, sirens wailing, raising startled looks from milkmen and paper boys as he sped from the scene of the crime.

She shook her head. He was such a big kid.

She looked around the spacious confines of the big vehicle, much bigger than the economic flutter cabs of her own time. Plenty of leg room here. She stretched out and jumped as something dug into their her hip.

She reached around.

"Oh!"

"What is it?" he said, never taking his eyes from the road.

"Are you the luckiest man on the planet, or what?" She held up the sonic screwdriver. In the other hand was a bulky manila envelope, gaping open to show the tracker, and edge of the psychic paper wallet.

"It's our effects."

—

They found the TARDIS right where they left it.

The Doctor tossed the Ixoran transceiver into a time safe for safekeeping and stripped down to his shirtsleeves in the lab, busy refining the raw Vadian into something he could use.

Mandy arranged the toolbox in the console room and bit her fingernails. She looked around, not for the first time, wondering why there were no clocks in a time machine.

It had to have been nearly 20 hours since they first landed in this town. All that time wasted in lockup, who knew how much time lost when she'd accidentally fallen asleep (which she hadn't told the Doctor about) and now, who knew how long it would take to refine the Vadian and effect repairs. "Moob" may have sounded funny 20 hours ago. But it lost all its humor when you realized you were sitting in the center of a space time implosion.

The Doctor strode in just as she started reducing her pinky down to the cuticle.

He wiped his forearm over his face, his wide sleeves rolled up over brawny black arms.

"Well, let's see if it's enough." He flopped down on the deck grating with his usual boneless lack of grace, his extra mass forcing an "oof!" out of him.

Ten minutes of surgical tinkering later, with Mandy acting as a sweating, nervous nurse, and he shoved the transfer node back into its slot.

Mandy held her breath as he reached up and activated the TARDIS.

Nothing happened.

"Moob?" she asked in a tiny terrified voice.

The Doctor looked around frantically, flipping switches and pulling levers from a kneeling position. "No. I'm sure we had enough. It's practically pure! This doesn't make..." he stopped, and dived back under the console. He ripped the crystalline cube of the node from its socket, turned it around and shoved it back in.

The TARDIS sighed and shuddered. The time rotor began pumping up and down.

With a few flicks and beeps the Doctor guided them seamlessly into the time vortex.

With a sigh, the Doctor turned his big body around and plopped down in a boneless sprawl. He tilted his head back against the rim of the console. Deflating with a sigh.

He rolled his head to look at Mandy who was sitting, crumpled, beside him.

"Sorry, we won't be moobing today."

Mandy just stared at him. Then she hauled off and hit him on the shoulder. "You are such a pain."

—

Mandy had taken the opportunity to have a bath and a nap as the Doctor checked over the chameleon arch. She'd found that in a scarce, short day she'd come to rather like this new body. It was light and nimble and she quite liked the curly red hair. She could do without the freckles though.

But, in the end, she couldn't keep it. Body mods had never been her style. Besides, her family would never recognize her.

So with a bouncy step, and the fresh white dress she'd rummaged up from the wardrobe room, she bobbed back into the console room.

The Doctor was just releasing the chameleon arch to retract back into the ceiling.

"Get it fixed?"

"Yes. Tracing the fault took longer than fixing it. With the Vadian in place, the power will be rerouted properly now. But I'll make sure to keep the arch powered down during flight from now on. I added a safety breaker just in case."

He dusted off his hands and started rolling down his shirt sleeves. He stopped and looked down at the muscular dark brown arms, he turned his hands over, studying the lighter palms.

"Still, it's an interesting body. I may keep it."

"Won't that mess up your next regeneration, being in an altered body?"

"Shouldn't do, no. Still. I suppose it wasn't working properly when it misfired. No point taking chances.

"Well then," he clapped his hands. "Who first? You or me?"

"Wait a minute. Before we change back, let's take a picture. Nobody'll ever believe this otherwise!" Mandy whipped out an old-fashioned Polaroid camera she'd picked up in the 1970s. She set the timer and set the camera on the console.

—

The picture was of two grinning strangers. A tall, burly black man in a broad breasted suit and a fedora, and a tiny redhaired girl in a floaty white dress. The man's hat was tipped back on his curly head, a big toothy grin on his face. The girl was smacking him on the shoulder, both glowering and laughing at something he'd said. Her blue biker shorts peeked out from under her hem as a gust of air under the grating blew her skirts upward.

—

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